


less dust, more stars

by serj



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Voltron Secret Santa 2016
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-31
Updated: 2016-12-31
Packaged: 2018-09-13 13:43:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9126157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/serj/pseuds/serj
Summary: “You said you didn’t like holidays, so naturally, I went all out.”A couple of newly dating paladins and their clumsy Christmas Eve escapades.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is a fic for spacesasuke for Voltron Secret Santa! I hope you like it. (Also, if you have an Ao3 username, let me know so I can gift this to you!)

Keith found comfort in quiet places. As a kid, his home was in pillow forts and treehouses. When he grew older, it was bathroom stalls, rooftops, forgotten corners of the Garrison. And the desert.

God, he loved the desert. It wasn’t pristine, and it didn’t need to be. It was wild and unkempt and vast. And it _breathed_. He swore it did. It was a living, breathing creature, older than any forest or river.

Space was like the desert, in a way. Less dust and more stars, but it was all the same to untrained eyes. It kept him grounded. The other paladins had stories and photographs, and he had the endless universe, more reminiscent of home than any picture or misty-eyed memory. 

Under normal circumstances, the halls of the Castle of Lions would be eerily silent as he trudged down them. Tonight, though, Christmas music blared distantly from some half-tuned stereo, playing a song Keith knew but couldn’t place. He could hear Allura’s disbelieving laugh down a nearby corridor. Though she and Coran were newcomers to human holidays, they shared most of the paladins’ enthusiasms that they have their own Castle-Christmas. And Pidge had promised to join in on the celebrations if she could later take the opportunity to introduce them to Hanukkah. 

Keith wasn’t one to keep time meticulously, but he had been counting down the days to the holiday season with increasing dread. 

It wasn’t that he didn’t like the holidays. He’d just never had opportunities to celebrate when he was little, and the tales of joy-filled mornings and evenings of food and dance made him feel a little alienated; it seemed even Allura and Coran adopted the holiday spirit better than he ever could. 

Ideally, he would be up in the observation deck watching galaxies drift before him, accompanied only by his breathing and the light of billions of stars. But Lance had promised him a “low-key” Christmas Eve celebration separate from the others, and the thought of a night alone with Lance after the chaos of the past few weeks left his stomach too tight and his head too fuzzy to decline. 

 

Lance opened the door before Keith had even finished knocking. He looked nice, Keith noted absently, in joggers and a sweater Hunk had given him. 

“Come on in.” He stepped out of the way to let Keith past, gesturing towards his room with some degree of bravado. “You said you didn’t like holidays, so naturally, I went all out.”

Hanging haphazardly around the small room were heavy, duly humming green lights. Lance had cut out surprisingly intricate paper snowflakes, which dangled from the ceiling at varying heights. One brushed Keith’s head as he stepped inside. He pushed it carefully out of the way. 

At the center of Keith’s vision stood a roughly triangle-shaped mass of metal scraps and wires that barely reached his knees in height.

“Is that...” Keith squinted, “Supposed to be a Christmas tree?” 

“I used what I had, okay?” Lance was standing slightly behind him with his hands on his hips, watching Keith survey the scene.

“No-” he turned. “I mean, it doesn’t really look like a tree, but I appreciate the effort.” _Sincerity, sincerity, sincerity._ He remembered mornings with Shiro in the cafeteria back at the Garrison, being tutored on his communication skills over breakfast.

_“I’m not asking you to sugarcoat, but just explain your way of thinking. Otherwise, you’ll end up sounding ungrateful.”_

“When I said I didn’t like Christmas, I didn’t mean I hated it. It just stresses me out.” 

“I know,” Lance replied, closing the distance between them. He placed one hand on Keith’s shoulder and grabbed Keith’s hand with the other. “But the best part of this is, you don’t have to do anything.” 

He waltzed across the room and Keith hesitantly followed suit, awkwardly gripping Lance’s waist and trying to step in time with his movements. 

“Ow- Lance, that’s my foot!” 

“Sorry, sorry.” He grinned. “I’m a little out of practice.” Lifting Keith’s arm up, he spun him around, dipping him until his hair brushed against the floor. Keith felt his cheeks prickle with heat at the proximity of Lance’s face before he lost his balance. 

“Shit.” Somewhere in his own clumsiness, his foot had hooked Lance’s ankle and sent them both tumbling. Lance was impossibly more bony than his lanky figure exhibited. “Could you get off? Your elbow is digging into my neck.”

“I think my foot’s stuck on something.” 

Keith watched in bewilderment as Lance squirmed above him, trying to free his leg from a tangle of cords and wires. Maybe it was his absurd expression, or the dizzying effects of the atrocious “Altean eggnog” Coran had tried to fix them earlier that day, but he burst out laughing. 

“What- don’t laugh at me!” 

“Sorry,” Keith replied breathlessly, readjusting himself to help Lance get free. “It’s just- you’ve got- your leg’s stuck on the tree.” 

Lance turned to confirm Keith’s observation, and couldn’t help himself in sharing Keith’s laughter. “Crap, you’re right-”

In their hysteria, it took them several minutes longer than necessary to untangle themselves from the mess of wires and limbs. 

“That wore me out,” Lance huffed, standing as he unhooked the last of the wires from his legs. “Can we be done with dancing now?” 

Keith looked from Lance to the now-destroyed ‘tree’ and back again, assessing. “Are you still watching those old Altean soap operas Hunk found?” 

 

Two hours and seven nonsensical episodes later, Keith lay curled against Lance, listening to the soft sound of his breathing. 

Lance was like the desert, in a way. Less dust and more bad jokes, but it was all the same as Keith felt the rise and fall of his chest against his back, an arm hanging loosely around Keith’s waist. Keith reached down to entwine their fingers, rubbing slow circles against the outside of his palm. Lance hummed inaudibly. 

“Hey, are you awake?”

“Mmm.”

“Lance?” 

“Hmm? What?” 

Keith shifted to face him, watching Lance blink slowly, eyelids heavy. Before he could hesitate, he gave him a chaste kiss.

“Merry Christmas.” 

*

**Author's Note:**

> This isn't super relevant to the fic, but I hc Pidge as a butch trans girl (she/they), and Keith as autistic.


End file.
